


She Knew

by writewithurheart



Series: Natasha Deserves Better [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: And then got jipped, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, Character Death Fix, Fix-It, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Internal Conflict, Natasha deserved better, Natasha kept this shit together for years, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 20:38:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18676996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writewithurheart/pseuds/writewithurheart
Summary: Natasha knew what needed to be done. She made the decision so no one else would have to.*CONTAINS ENDGAME SPOILERS*





	She Knew

**Author's Note:**

> First off, this is based off what happens in the movie and could very well be considered suicidal. DO NOT READ if it would trigger you. Please. 
> 
> Secondly, this was sort of created as a rationale for why Natasha did what she did. Do I agree with the decision to write it that way? No. Natasha deserved far better, but this is me trying to make peace with it. And then I realized, I could just fix it. So I hope you like what I did.

**She Knew**

The boys were back, talking time travel and saving the world, and she has to wonder if they don’t realize that’s what she’s been doing for the past five years. Her and the entire team they abandoned. Oh, Steve has popped by on occasion. She’s been in regular contact with Pepper and her gorgeous goddaughter. Bruce can barely look at her after everything, Tony has resisted every offer of help, and Clint disappeared off the face of the Earth. 

Clint she can forgive. It’s as easy as breathing. She’d forgive him for anything, even lashing out in pain and refusing to rely on her. If anything, she’s pursuing this for him, Laura, and the kids. It’s harder with Bruce. Bruce just symbolizes the rough edges at her first and only attempt at a lasting romantic relationship. 

Tony is just Tony. He only shows his forgiveness through her interactions with Morgan in that he lets them happen at all. 

With their return, the empty building suddenly feels too full. There’s too many people. The walls are closing in, and she just needs some space. Her space. The office that was once Pepper’s, where she eats her peanut butter and fluff sandwiches and wonders if this is all her life’s going to be. 

“Hey, boss lady, how goes the fight?” 

Natasha blinks at the blue hologram in surprise. “Carol. Thought you were MIA for a while.” 

“Had a break. Thought I’d check in.” Her hologram drops into a chair and cracks open what Nat can only assume is some sort of alcohol. “How’s Earth?” 

She snorts and leans back into her own chair. “Found a group of idiots who think time travel is an option.” 

Carol frowns. “Time travel? Seriously?” 

Nat pinches the bridge of her nose. “Yup.” Noise filters into the office from the main training floor where they’ve set up the machine to test the time travel theory. Company after so long alone is disorienting. She’s not sure if she’s happy to have them or annoyed. 

“Think it’ll work?” 

Natasha meets Carol’s eyes. “It has to.” 

There’s a burst of laughter from down the hall and Natasha’s eyes slam shut as the sound crashes into her, a reminder of what was. It’s incongruous with her life the last five years. The only light in her life has been when she’s with Morgan Stark. Around her goddaughter, she lets herself live and be happy. This base was never that for her. 

“Wanna talk about it?” 

“Talk about what?” 

Carol, in that annoying way of hers gestures to the hall. There’s no way the sound carries through the hologram. 

Nat sighs in exasperation. “Ever feel like people just walk right over you without realizing it?” 

She gets a sage nod in response. “Yeah. Usually let them shoot themselves in the foot and then save their lives.” 

“If only,” Nat mutters as she stares at the papers on her desk, the fruits of their last discussion of the stones and everywhere they’ve been spotted over the years.  

“It’s your team, right?” Carol asks suddenly, sitting forward. 

Nat snorts. “Yeah, sure. My team is you, Rhodey, Okoye, Nebula, and Rocket. The rest,” she gestures to the training area, “they follow Steve and Tony.” As if she wasn’t the only one to stay for the past 5 years, as if she hasn’t held everything together with willpower and a prayer. God, she wants to hate them all even as she loves them. 

Carol stares at her for a moment with that assessing gaze. “They take you for granted.” 

She wants to object. Steve and Clint would follow her. Tony wouldn’t because he doesn’t listen to anyone but Pepper and Morgan. The trust between her and Bruce is too broken for him to listen anyway. Besides, Carol’s right. 

“We need to talk.” 

Nat’s eyes jump to the door where Nebula stands. “About what?” 

“The soul stone.” 

“Well, that’s my cue,” Carol announces. “Let me know if it works.” She signs off with a wink and a flash of blue light.  

Natasha turns back to Nebula, pulling out the sheet with the soul stone’s details. It’s the sparcest of all, with only a location: Vormir. “Did you remember something?” 

Nebula is silent. That alone wouldn’t draw Natasha’s interest. The cyborg usually doesn’t participate much in conversation, not since the rest of the team appeared and took over the compound. Natasha can’t really blame her considering she does much the same thing. This silence is different though, it’s charged. 

“Thanos…,” she says quietly. “He…” 

Natasha puts down the pen. There’s gravity in this confession, a pain not talked about. They all lost people in the snap, but this is more. 

“He took my sister with him to Vormir, and she didn’t come back.” Nebula says. At the last word, she meets Natasha’s eyes again. “He had been crying. My father doesn’t cry. Didn’t cry.” 

Natasha frowns. 

“Gamora didn’t die in the snap.” Nebula says. “She died on Vormir.” 

A sacrifice. Natasha leans back in the chair, unsure what to say. 

“There was no one our father loved more. Not even himself. The soul stone…” 

“Requires part of your soul,” Natasha finishes for her. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Thank you, Nebula.” 

“That is why time travel won’t work,” she says with conviction, “not unless-” 

“There needs to be another sacrifice,” Natasha says with a long exhale. “Two people who are a part of each other’s souls.”  

Nebula nods, solemn. 

“Then there’s only one option,” she murmurs quietly. 

“I count two,” Nebula corrects. 

Natasha shakes her head. “No. I can’t ask anyone else to do this.” 

“The soldier would,” Nebula says. “To bring back the disappeared. If you asked him.” 

Her laugh is cold and jaded. Yes, Steve would sacrifice without a thought. He doesn’t think he deserves to live through this. So, yes, he would sacrifice for any one of them. She loves him enough that it would break her. And there’s no way he would let her jump for him. 

No, Steve can’t be anywhere near Vormir. He’s better going after the Tesseract anyway. 

It’ll have to be Clint. 

“Thank you, Nebula.” For not telling the whole team, for warning her what decision would have to be made for them to succeed. Everything has a cost.

Clint won’t make it easy on her. The idiot will try to sacrifice himself, probably tell her to watch out for his family. But she can take him. She can make sure he’s there when Laura and the kids come back. She can save him the same way he saved her when he brought her in from the cold. 

She doesn’t tell the rest of the team, just makes sure that she, Nebula, Rhodey, and Clint are assigned to the group going into deep space. The argument being that Nebula knew where the stones were and that Clint was their best pilot for the space ship. 

Nebula maintains her silence on the subject in front of the others, but pulls Natasha aside when they change into their suits. 

“Are you sure about this?” 

Nat steps into her suit and throws her hair over her shoulder. “It’s the only way.” 

“It’s suicide.” 

“Or murder,” Natasha counters. “And I stopped killing people a long time ago.” 

Nebula falls silent. “He will not let you do this. He will stop you.” 

“He’s welcome to try.” Natasha yanks the zipper up and turns to face Nebula. 

“We won’t be able to bring you back.” 

Natasha runs her hand down her brain, staring at her old uniform hanging in the locker. It holds memories, not all pleasant, but certainly not all awful. “I don’t want this. If there’s another way, I’ll find it, but if there’s a sacrifice to be made. I’ll make it.” 

“And he doesn’t get a choice?” 

Nat smiles sadly. “I owe him my life. He’ll try. I can guarantee it. He’ll do everything he can to make sure I can come home, but this is my choice. My life to give.” 

Nebula doesn’t say anything. 

“If it was you and Gamora, would you do it?” 

Her silence is enough of an answer. Natasha nods and closes her locker for the last time. She walks away, back straight as though it doesn’t eat at her. It’s not an easy decision but it’s one she’s committed to. 

Natasha’s feet carry her back to the office and her hand hovers over the projector. She drops it to the table and raises it again. Her breath sticks in her throat and emotions that she’s carefully schooled her whole life bowl into her. Nat drops into the chair and buries her head in her arms on top of the desk. Her body shakes with repressed emotion. 

“Natasha?” 

She blinks and looks up at the hologram. The remote was pushed away from her arms, too far for her to have accidentally hit. She blinks and attempts to casually wipe the tears from her cheeks. 

Carol stares at her. “What happened?” 

“It’s not important,” Natasha says. “We’re leaving to go after the stones. I hate to ask, but if something goes wrong…” 

“Of course,” Carol says immediately. “Count on me.” 

“Thank you, Carol. For everything.” 

Carol narrows her eyes. “You’re going to succeed. We’ll bring them all back.” 

Natasha nods. “Of course. The plan will work.” 

It’s not a lie, not really. Carol knows she’s missing something, but she doesn’t call her on it for which Natasha is grateful. She feels fragile right now in a way she never has before. After Carol signs off she repeats it to herself a few more times: 

“The plan will work. The plan  _ will _ work. The plan will  _ work. _ ” 

She takes a deep breath and straightens her spine. She is Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow, and she does not back down from what needs to be done. She wears her mask and jokes how she should with Clint right up until that last moment when she sees the understanding light his face, realizes that she intends to die jumping off the cliff. 

Truth be told, the cliff makes it easier. She just has to fling herself off the edge and into oblivion. 

He doesn’t let her go easy, just like she knew he wouldn’t. 

They hang off the cliff and she sees him reach for the clip to transfer it to her hand, to trade places with her. There’s that moment of understanding when he realizes that she made that impossible. There’s no way to trade places. 

She’s crying just as much as she is when she slips her hand loose of his grip and falls. She doesn’t fight it, just watches him as she falls through the air. She hates her boys a little bit for this, for making her choose. The rest of her, the part deep in her soul, knows she could never ask another to choose death for her. 

This wipes out the red. This saves the world. 

What a crappy job. 

She waits for the impact, a jolt, closes her eyes in peace, but it doesn’t come. 

Her eyes fly open to orange warmth and pale woman with her purple lips pulled back in a smile. “A sacrifice, freely given,” she says, her voice an odd echo in the orange world, “is a strong gift indeed.” 

Natasha looks around, frowning. “The stone…” 

“Was given,” the woman says calmly. “Now we wait.”

“Wait?” Natasha asks, eyes darting around. “I thought I was dead.” 

The woman nods. “Of course. You sacrificed yourself. Do you even know what you did?” 

“What was necessary,” Natasha says. 

“You went willingly. Many have come to Vormir seeking the stone and many have sacrificed, but only two have gone willingly off the cliff.” The woman smiles. “You died to save billions killed before their time. Did you think Death would forget?” 

Natasha frowns. “I don’t understand.” 

“The stones overrule the natural order. Balance must be restored.” 

Natasha frowns at the woman, taking ripped black jeans, studded belt, combat boots, and ankh necklace. Her black hair is threaded with purple highlights and her skin so fair it could be translucent. “Who are you?” 

She spreads her arms wide. “I am Death. And I am Rebirth. I am why we wait.” 

If this is Death, Natasha supposes she is along for the ride. “What are we waiting for?” 

Death purses her lips. “For the end. Whatever it may be.” 

“Great. Cryptic.” Natasha sits on the ground. “Any idea how long that will take?” 

A shrug. 

Natasha sighs looks around. “So what do we do here?” 

“Whatever you want,” Death replies. 

What does someone do for eternity? 

Natasha hasn’t a clue.

She meditates, which either lasts forever or only a moment. The passage of time, which she can usually measure, seems untraceable here. So she moves to dance, the music only in her head until she starts to hum. Still time feels stagnant. 

And then it doesn’t. 

Death approaches. “We’ve reached the end.” 

Natasha blinks. “Already?” 

A nod. 

“What happens now?” 

“You choose: Life or death?” 

“I choose,” she repeats. “You mean, I could just choose to live as what? A reanimated corpse?” 

Death smiles. “You go back to your life, your family, your loved ones. Or you could stay. Which do you choose?” 

“I could…” All the reasons she chose to sacrifice for - all the people loved and lost - she could return to them. 

“Yes.” Death waits. “What’s your choice?” 

“Life,” Natasha whispers, hope flaring for the first time since the Snap. “I choose life.”

“Good,” Death says. She presses her lips to Natasha’s. 

She wakes, eyes flashing open in a flare of orange light that fades away. The room unfamiliar but Clint is there beside the bed, Lila, Cooper and Nathaniel are bundled in around her, cuddling. Tears prick her eyes and she hugs them closer. 

The movement grabs Clint’s attention and his eyes jerk to hers. He grabs her hand and squeezes. “Don’t you  _ ever _ do that to me again, Nat.” 

She smiles weakly. “Couldn’t let you take all the credit.” 

He shakes his head, looking lost. “You died.” He wipes at the tears running down his face. “You chose to die.” 

Natasha fights her own tears and a watery laugh. “And then I chose to live.” She repeats it herself as the Bartons wake and snuggle closer. The tears flow freely and she feels lighter than she has in years. 

“Never again,” Clint says sternly. 

“Never again,” she promises.


End file.
